From the world’s largest bird, Common Ostrich Struthio camelus to the tiny Cape Penduline-Tit Anthoscopus minutus the country boasts an impressive amount of avian biodiversity. A new study from BirdLife South Africa, however, shows that the past few years have not been kind to the country’s birds, and many of them are in decline in the country, with the number in danger of disappearing from South Africa only increasing.

Over five years in the making, The State of South Africa’s Birds 2018 report used national survey and monitoring data to create a picture of the conservation status of the country’s birds and their habitats. See the full story here.

In honour of International Women’s Day, we invited Awatef Abiadh to share her insight from interviews with motivated and brave women who lead on conservation projects in developing countries in the Mediterranean. Get ready to be inspired…

Many of you will know that Martin died on Sunday 24th February 2019, relatively peacefully, having been diagnosed with untreatable cancer in September 2018. The end came very quickly with all the family here, and until recently his quality of life was not too bad.

He was very stoical, and at least it gave him time to organise things, his favourite / best books went off to auction in October, and he was delighted when his archive went to the Natural History Museum at Tring where it might be of use to others.

The 41,000 ha Tsitongambarika forest is one of Madagascar’s few remaining stands of humid lowland forest, a globally unique ecosystem with 80 – 90 per cent of its life made up of endemic species.

But it’s also an ecosystem under threat, ringed by villages comprising over 60,000 people and under pressure from illegal timber exploitation and encroachment by slash-and-burn agriculture and other forms of shifting cultivation.